March 5, 2012

Household Binder Project {Completed!}

Woo-Hoo! I finished my household binder! More importantly, I am using it daily!

I thought I would take you through what I included in our family binder. As our family life changes, I know the contents will also change. I anticipate activities and kindergarten will be some of the biggest changes in our notebook!

At this point, I am including everything in plastic sleeves. My thought is that most items will not be taken out more than once a month to write on them, so there is no need to hole punch the paper.

Then I began using the dividers. I found my plastic, semi-transparent dividers with pockets at Target. They were exactly what I was hoping to find. (Unlike the pretty dividers I found with my desk supplies, these are large enough that the tabs stick out from the plastic page protectors.)

Family Medical History (Two of my three children have had life-threatening health problems. Two take medication daily. I included hospitalization/diagnosis dates and specific information about medication that is taken.)

Calendars

2012 Calendar, printed 4 to a page, but I may just replace this with a one-page 2012 calendar since I do not want to write much on it. (Just major vacations and work/school holidays.)

Monthly To-Do (I created this, but will likely take it out since I like the cleaning checklist, even if I don't use it as a checklist.)

Dates to Remember (Linked to two types) Apparently, I really need to fill this out! Last week I forgot the birthday of Derek's aunt. Happy birthday Donna!

Cleaning and Organizing

Various cleaning printables (Links found here. These will be more of a resource when I need them. I keep several of these in one plastic sleeve.)

Cleaning Checklist (Though it has the circles to check off, I think this will be more of a visual aid for me. I likely won't check off each task...though maybe that would help me get them done.)

Little Lists (The purple box below is Meals for Guests. We have a lot of overnight company; I thought making a permanent list might be helpful. I made the document with tables in Microsoft Word.)

Grocery List (I will explain later this week, but I have a basic list that I add to weekly.)

Tax documents (I will be making donations every month, so I thought I should have a place to keep my receipts. They are in their own plastic sleeve.)

Take-Out Menus (These are all in one plastic sleeve.)

Coupons (I am using the front and back pockets of a divider for the coupons. The pretty label is from here. We have so many baby coupons that I like to keep them separate. We also belong to the "wholesale" club BJ's. Their coupons often say "any three items pictured on this page." Because of that, the divider pockets are extra nice. We can just cut out the entire page and place it in the pocket.)I

At the moment, I do not keep my recipes in my binder. I may change that in the next month or so. My recipe system works really well for me and is something that I will share once I have updated it.

Have you created a binder recently? We want to see how you created it! If you have a binder, leave a comment with a link. If you do not have a blog, feel free to tell us about it in the comments anyway!

If you would like to see how I built my household binder from the first stages you can!

I still haven't finished mine yet.I had such good intentions!! Firefly has a stomach virus now, though. :P I'm probably 3/4th of the way through. Lord willing, I WILL finish it in the next couple of days, though!(if the rest of us don't end up with a virus) :)

What a great idea! I need a household binder so I can stay on track and be organized. My life has been getting busy and I have been starting to forget things and this household binder would come in handy.